Article

Canada East Regional Report: It's Not Over 'Til It's Over

Published on Sat, 2013-05-25 13:35

By:

Kate Rose, Carolle Robinson and Stephanie Parniak

"There's nothing won until it's all won."

On a sunny but cool, Saturday morning in Toronto, the stands in the International Centre slowly filled. By the end of the first heat of the team Event 4, the stands were full and the place was buzzing in anticipation of the day’s events.

Men

In the first heat of Event 4, the story was 20-year-old Lucas Proulx. Proulx, rocking well-traveled sneakers and a Van Halen T-shirt, hit the pistols first alongside Antony Pellerin. Proulx just kept at it, took the lead and continued to build. The DJ popped on some ‘Vagabond’ just for Proulx, who managed a few fist bumps in appreciation. The classic rock continued for the rest of the heat. He managed 49 dumbbell snatches before the air horn sounded.

The first man to finish in the time cap was Tyler Kopacz, finishing in 23:53. Kopacz took the lead early in the second heat, and maintained it throughout.

“I stuck to my game plan,” Kopacz said afterward. “I knew I had to do short sets on the chest-to-bars. I could hear my coach yell, ‘Slow down!’ to keep me on pace and it worked. This has been my strongest event so far. I like chippers.”

In the final heat, Brandon Crump was the first to pistols, followed by Simon Paquette and Adrian Lui. Never one to be left out of a race, Matthieu Dubreucq joined them for the pistols. Matthew Lefave followed. But Crump kept building his lead. Crump hit the last set of squats with 13:19 on the clock. Albert-Dominic Larouche followed.

It was Crump, Paquette and Lui first to the dumbbell snatches. Always one to work well under pressure, Lefave started busting out the lifts, pulling even with Crump before the horn sounded. Crump was able to hold on and finished 92 snatches. Both Larouche and Lefave followed with 85, tying for second in the heat.

“That event was way easier in practice,” Paquette said. “I don’t know what it was — maybe stress? Right now, I don’t remember what the events are tomorrow … just kidding. I’ll tape up and be back.”

Crump expressed disappointment in his performance.

“My goal was to finish it,” he said. “So I came a little short. The snatches are hard for me. But I can do pistols all day.”

After all four heats, Kopacz won the event, being the only man to finish.

For the women, it was all about the race between Michele Letendre and Camille Leblanc-Bazinet. When the final heat stepped on to the floor, Canada East had yet to see a woman complete the event.

The athletes remained in close contact during the wall balls and the chest-to-bar pull-ups. Both strung 20 together immediately. Leblanc-Bazinet was the first to the pistols, but Letendre followed only a few seconds later.

Jennifer Lymburner wasn’t going to let the leaders too far out of her site. She hit the pistols quickly. She moved to the snatches as Leblanc-Bazinet finished her first 20.

It was during the last set of pistols that Letendre pulled ahead of Leblanc-Bazinet. She led into the snatches, tacking 40 reps by the 18-minute mark. With four minutes to go, all of the other women had reached the snatches.

But it would be Letendre’s event. She jumped on her mat at 23:49, having done the last 20 snatches unbroken. She is the only woman at the Canada East Regional to finish Event 4.

“I did way better than I expected,” she said. “In practice, my best time was 24:58 and I beat that by close to a minute.”

“I qualified individual, so the whole time I kept telling myself I could be doing 100 … but it was only 30, 30, 30, 30,” Ozerkevich said.

Reebok CrossFit Firepower, CrossFit Select and L’Usine CrossFit walked on the floor for the third heat as the leaders in the team race. CrossFit NCR and Team We Are Fitness refused to let it be easy for them.

It was a tight race was among Reebok CrossFit FirePower, CrossFit Select, L’Usine CrossFit, CrossFit NCR, and We Are Fitness. The five teams kept in close proximity for the whole event.

It would be L’Usine to finish first, in a time of 19:35. CrossFit NCR came to the mat second, in a time of 19:42. CrossFit FirePower followed in third, with a time of 19:58. NCR’s finish puts them in the tie for fourth place overall with WAF.

L’Usine’s Dany Roy says the team recognizes there are still three events left.

Correspondent Marty Cej talks with Joe Johnson, an individual male competitor. Johnson, of CrossFit Resurrection, has cystic fibrosis, but doesn't let it stop him. Johnson is currently in 23rd place after four events.

Danielle Leblanc traveled to the 2013 Canada East Regional to watch her daughters, Camille, Rachel and Claude, and son, Alexis, compete.
CrossFit and CrossFit competition is part of their family.
Although she's on the sidelines now, Leblanc is also a competitor. She came one placing shy of qualifying for the Masters 50-54 Division at the 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games.

We caught up with Camille Leblanc-Bazinet and Michele Letendre to talk about their strategy for Event 6.
On the May 25 episode of the CrossFit Games Update Show, Rory McKernan challenged Leblanc-Bazinet to do the 50 handstand push-ups unbroken. Challenge accepted.

Meet the team from Deka CrossFit of Canada East. The members of Deka range in age from 15 to 35. Regardless of age, they all exhibit the same amount of dedication to CrossFit. Read more about Deka's young guns here.

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet will make her fourth appearance at the CrossFit Games. This weekend, she won the 2013 Canada East Regional and set two world records on the final day of the competition.
Early this morning, Camille tore through Event 6 in 8:08. She finished the event 23 seconds faster than the previous world record holder, Katrin Tanja Davidsdottir.